The Snowden Effect, Continued

We no more get finished telling Edward Snowden to shut the fk up and stop giving interviews in which he undercuts his own case, alienates thousands of possible allies, changes the subject away from the conversation we should be having, and perhaps talks himself into a lengthy study of federal institutional dining than the other side plants a clumsy-ass story about the past life of Glenn Greenwald that is, frankly, more of an embarrassment to journalism than is David Gregory, and I didn't think that was possible.

The reporter who broke the story about the National Security Agency's secret surveillance programs has a little secret of his own. Before he was a reporter and commentator for The Guardian newspaper, Glenn Greenwald was a lawyer - and had a part-time job in the porn business.

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It turns out that, a decade or so ago, Greenwald was involved in consulting with some porn company, and that his relationship came to a messy conclusion, and, I suspect, the Daily News became interested in this at all so that it could get the phrase, "Hairy Jocks" into the newspaper. There's also some other weird story about a dog. If anyone at the NSA had a hand in this, I want my tax money back. C'mon, fellas, tradecraft used to have a little style to it.

Meanwhile, our national conversation about under how much of a surveillance state we want to live our lives continues to get off to a sluggish start.